


besame mucho

by stoprobbers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, Idiots in Love, Kissing, Post-Season/Series 02, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 17:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17187329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: She spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about his mouth, especially what it feels like pressed against hers. She makes those fantasies come true as often as possible.So, in the moment, she thinks nothing of it when he kisses her dizzy on his mother’s sofa.





	besame mucho

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t sign up for jancy secret santa this year because i was concerned about being able to make deadline and clearly that would have been an issue - this was meant to be posted on Christmas Eve, then Christmas, then Boxing Day. So, uh, happy Few Days Before New Years? 
> 
> A bit of lightly-Christmas-themed fluff.

It takes her a while to put it all together. At first she doesn't even notice.

That seems odd, because in every other way she notices him so much more.

It’s that first flush of love, that weightless giddiness that blinds her in the beginning. The swoop of his hair and the way his neck smells where it meets his collar and the curve of his lips. She spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about his mouth, especially what it feels like pressed against hers. She makes those fantasies come true as often as possible.

So, in the moment, she thinks nothing of it when he kisses her dizzy on his mother’s sofa.

They’re sitting in his living room, perched on the edge of the couch with notes for their upcoming finals spread on the cushions between them. Their hands brush and he catches her fingertips so lightly it makes her arms break out in gooseflesh. Warmth suffuses her, as it is more often wont to do since their secret mission and the terrifying night in Hopper’s cabin.

“Nancy,” he says softly, oh so softly, and she looks up, surprised at the gentleness in his voice.

“Yeah?” she responds, but before she can say more he cuts her off with a kiss.

He uses his grip on her hand to hold her to him, pressing it against his stomach. She loses herself in sensation gasps when he pulls away far too soon, leaving her blinking at him, dazed.

“What was that for?” she wonders, bringing her other hand to her lips. She’s not sure if it’s to feel the lingering heat of his kiss or cover her smile.

He just shakes his head and gives her a fond grin before returning his attention to their notes. She grabs her chemistry book, but it’s just a cover to stare at him over the pages and let her mind drift away.

 

+++

 

He’s got eight photos to finish for his final so she meets him in the darkroom at lunch and watches him work while she eats. 

She likes watching him in the red light, his easy command of the space and equipment. He looks younger in the dark room, too, the red smoothing out his features and erasing the bags under his eyes.

She perches on one of the tables, following his movements with her gaze. Sometimes they talk - about class, or classmates, or their brothers, or even Steve - but most of the time she just watches him in his element.

She’s eating an apple with one hand and swinging her legs when he motions her over.

“Okay,” he says, digging a flashlight out of his bag and handing it to her. She looks at it like it’s an alien creature, then back at him. “So when I say ‘go,’ I need you to turn that on and shine it at the ceiling then count to 30. Okay?”

“Uh, I guess?” she sets the apple down, turns the flashlight in her hand. “Isn’t this going to ruin your photo?”

“Only if you do it now. One of the pictures has to be solarized,” he says, peering through his focus finder and adjusting the enlarger. “It’s ridiculous, it’s really hard to do consistently. I’ve been reading up on it and even Man Ray couldn’t get it right all the time. But I think this’ll work enough not to fail this part of the final. I’m gonna try, at least.”

“Okay.” She blinks. “I have no idea what any of that means, but I will turn it on when you say.”

“And count to 30.”

“And count to 30,” she repeats obligingly.

“Alright,” he slides the photo paper into place. “Here we go.”

At the developing station she leans in at his shoulder, watching him slide the paper into the tray of chemicals. Their elbow bumps as he starts to jiggle the tray.

“So what’s it supposed to look like if you do it right?” she asks, tilting her head and watching him agitate the liquid, willing the image to appear. “Solarize. That means--”

He swallows the rest of her sentence, swooping in and kissing her hard, almost desperately. It’s quick, not enough time for her to even kiss him back properly, but there’s an emotional force behind it that nearly bowls her over. He pulls back only the space of a breath and when he kisses her again it’s slower and a lot wetter.

They wrestle for control until she slides her fingers into his hair and tugs; then he’s putty in her hands. She scrapes her teeth over his lower lip, and the groan it pulls is very, very gratifying.

“It’ll overdevelop,” he mumbles against her, not really doing anything about it. Eventually he backs away with shorter and shorter kisses until they’re apart again.

Nancy licks her lips and raises her eyebrows as he lifts the paper out of the developer and slides it into the stop bath.

“That how you say ‘thank you’ now?” She waits for him to meet her eyes and winks at him. He wrinkles his nose and ducks his head. “You’re blushing.”

Even in the red light she can see his cheeks are darker.

“Am not,” he grumbles.

“You are. Why are you blushing?” She bumps her shoulder against his.

“Shut up,” he laughs, moving the photo into the fixer.

“You liiiiiiike me," she teases. "You wanna kiiiiss me.” She leans in closer but he moves his head away.

“OK, that’s enough,” he bumps his hip into hers as he shakes the fixer tray. “You’ve served your purpose, you can go back to eating your lunch now.”

He keeps using his hip to push her back to her former perch, rinsing the photo and hanging on the line along the way, and steals a bite of her turkey sandwich before moving onto his next print.

 

+++

 

She starts to keep a tally of it - the times his eyes glaze over in a different way and he’s kissing her harder, deeper, more desperately than usual. It keeps happening; once when they're cutting through the woods on their walk home, another time at the mouth of the alley next to the movie theater after leaving _Beverly Hills Cop_.

She’s sure there must be a pattern, but every time she thinks she might be catching onto it she gets a piece that doesn't fit.

The picture refuses to focus, the pieces refuse to interlock properly, and Nancy keeps puzzling.

“We could see a movie?” she offers from his passenger seat on a Thursday afternoon they haven't planned out, leaning back and propping her loafers on the dashboard. His hand swipes at her shin.

“Hey, don’t scuff up my car,” he admonishes lightly. “Also, I’ve gotta pick up Will.”

“I thought it’s AV Club day.”

“It is.” He doesn’t seem to think anything of it as he takes the right turn towards the middle school.

“They won’t be done for like an hour.” She makes a face at him. “You want to just hang around the middle school for an hour?”

“Well it’s not enough time to see a movie.”

“Yeah but we could go do something else. Maybe somewhere more private,” she mumbles, sitting up and crosslegged. He reaches out again, squeezing her knee this time.

“Later,” he promises, and pokes her thigh. “And don’t mess up my leather seats either.”

“Please, as if this wasn’t ripped before. For years, probably.”

He rolls his eyes at her as he pulls into the middle school parking lot, eases into a spot by the gym.

“Jonathan, this is the gym,” she points out when he opens her door. He just takes her hand and pulls her out.

“I know,” he replies and starts to walk through the door.

“AV Club is in the AV room,” she reminds him, hanging back. He tugs on her hand to get her inside.

“Oh, uh, I think Will said something about needing more space for their project today? So they’re meeting in the gym.”

She frowns at him. His shoulders are tense and he’s looking past her, not at her, like he’s hiding something. The puzzle box in the back of her mind opens up but no pieces immediately fit into this one.

“So we’re just going to wait an hour for them in the lobby of the middle school gym.” It’s not a question, she delivers it deadpan, but the corners of his mouth quirk up anyway. Her eyes narrow further.

“Yeah, I guess?”

“What is up with you?” she steps closer until they’re almost touching.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he answers loftily and pulls her over to the massive tiger mural that spent so many months haunting her dreams.

The truth is she’s not particularly keen to hang out in the middle school gym lobby ever, not just because it affords significantly less privacy than, say, parking in the back corner of the furthest staff parking lot. It brings queasy terror back to her. She can still smell the de-icing salt and slightly-rusty hose water, can still hear the echo of Eleven’s voice off the high ceilings. Can still feel the painted cinderblock at her back as she cried, propped up against the very mural they’ve stopped in front of.

Normally she’d try to charm him into changing his mind, but this calls for a little more honesty.

“I don’t like it here,” she admits, shaking off his grip and crossing her arms. “Can’t we please just come back when they’re done?”

His eyes soften as he leans in, resting forehead against hers and nuzzling the tip of her nose twice before tilting his head and pressing his lips to hers. He kisses her slowly and delicately, hands cradling her face as if he’s holding something precious and infinitely breakable.

Even though she knows it’s coming her eyebrows still raise in surprise and then, to her genuine shock, she feels her knees grow weak.

He’s kissed her so many ways in the last month, made her feel so many things, but this time alongside the desire and love that boil in the pit of her stomach, she feels a sense of safety that threatens to overwhelm her. To keep herself steady she fists her hands in his shirt and holds him close. She wants to burrow into him and stay there forever, and the only reason she doesn’t is because then she’d have to stop kissing him.

Soon the cinderblock is at her back again but instead of that sick feeling there's only a rush of heat from the pit of her stomach. She slides her hands around his waist and into his back pockets. His thigh slips between her legs.

She doesn’t even notice the clang of the door opening, but Jonathan does and breaks away from her. Nancy keeps her eyes closed, trying both not to be noticed and to stay in the bubble of the kiss a little longer.

“Jonathan?” Mrs. Byers’ voice shatters the spell and Nancy’s eyes fly open. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Has something happened?”

Her pitch rises with each question, panic creeping into her voice, and Jonathan is at her side in a flash, a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s fine, everything’s fine, I, um, I thought I was picking Will up from AV Club.” That nervous note is back in his voice.

“AV doesn’t end for an hour and no, you’re not?” It comes out a question as Mrs. Byers looks back and forth between them. Nancy hopes to god she isn’t blushing. “Hello, Nancy, good to see you.”

“Hi, Mrs. Byers.” She offers a little wave.

“Well why are _you_ here?” Jonathan interjects.

“Because Will left his rocket at home.” She holds up a cardboard contraption that Nancy thinks looks more paper airplane than functional rocket, and frowns curiously at her older son.

“Oh, well, then I guess we can go catch that movie,” He turns back to Nancy, grabbing her hand and pulling. She widens her eyes at Mrs. Byers, thinks hard at her, _I have no idea what’s going on either, he’s been weird lately I swear_ , and finds the older woman trying to hide her laughter.

“Why are you being so weird,” she asks when he pulls her out into the parking lot, to the car.

“I’m not, I thought I had to pick up Will.”

“Yes, you are. What’s up? Come on, tell me.”

“Nothing’s up.”

“Something’s definitely up,” she buckles her seatbelt and leans in close, until her nose is almost against his cheek. “I can read you like a book, Byers. You can tell me, you know.”

“Nothing. Is. Up,” he repeats, putting the car in reverse. “Now, what did you want to see?”

“I’m gonna figure it out,” she warns him but he ignores her in favor of listing movie options until she picks one just to shut him up.

 

+++

 

The pieces of the puzzle keep piling up but they don't do much more than float in an amorphous cloud around her. It’s not until the Army Surplus Store that it all clicks into place.

They’re Christmas shopping, leaving the toy store where she’s spent an irritating amount of time determining which new Dungeons and Dragons books to buy Mike (it was much easier finding Holly a doll), when Jonathan pulls up short and grabs her elbow.

“Do you mind if we stop in there for a second?” he asks, nodding his head towards the surplus store across the street. She feels her face contort and whatever face she makes must be extreme because he looks wildly offended. “It’s not that weird of a request!”

“Jonathan ‘I Haven’t Shot A Gun Since I Was 10’ Byers wants to go into a hunting shop without a monster breathing down our necks, and you don’t think it’s weird?” Still, she follows him towards the entrance.

“It’s not weird, it’s for Will.” He grabs her hand tightly as he pushes the door open, drawing her to his side. “He needs some stuff for improvements to Castle Byers.”

She smiles at him and threads their fingers together as they walk down an aisle of waterproof fabrics and tents. She holds out the basket she grabbed so he can pile cloth and several rolls of reflective tape into it and lets her eyes wander over the shelves.

“Think we should restock anything?” she wonders aloud, considering several boxes of long, thick nails in front of her. “Steve’s got the bat now, we should probably make at least one more.”

He’s standing behind her so she can’t see his face but he does make an odd sort of sound at that, like he’s choked on nothing or his own spit.

“That's… not a bad idea,” he manages after a second. He’s much closer all of a sudden, and she can feel the heat of him through her jacket.

“What should we get,” she ponders aloud, grabbing a handful of the nails she remembers buying last time, trying to remember what’s still hidden in her closet. It’s so familiar, shopping for this with him, but distinct and different without the weight of an impending monster hunt on her shoulder.

“Whatever you want,” he answers, but the tenderness in his tone is entirely unexpected. It feels weighty and important, the kind of tone you'd expect during a proposal, not a shopping trip.

“Another bear trap?” she teases, trying to lighten this new mood, and steps through the narrow opening and into the trapping section. A very similar selection as they year before is laid out haphazardly on the shelves and she laughs. "Hey look, they still have our brand—"

She can't finish her joke, though, because suddenly Jonathan is pressing her up against the flimsy metal shelving and kissing her so hard she can feel his teeth behind his lips. She gasps in surprise and he takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss. The basket falls, forgotten, from her hand, as does the bag from the toy store. All she can do is cling to his shoulders and feel one of the bear traps start to dig into her back.

"What—" she manages as he breaks away to suck in a breath but he doesn't let her finish, hauls her against him with both hands on her ass. She's only mildly surprised to find she can feel his hardness against her hip.

"Hey!" a voice interrupts. "You two! Cut that out before I kick you out!"

They break apart, though his hold on her doesn't loosen, and turn to find the cashier standing at the top of the aisle, hands on hips and an angry frown on his face.

"Sorry," Jonathan stutters, releases her like she's burned him. "I—sorry."

He scoops up the basket and takes off towards the checkout, leaving Nancy behind to stare at his back. It takes her a moment to get her bearings back, to return enough to her body to _move_ , to grab her shopping bag and follow him to the register where he's counting out cash, to stand by his side and study his profile.

He's still pink from embarrassment but the rest of him – his expression, his body language – is resolutely neutral.

She thanks the cashier absently when he does and follows him out of the store, keeps studying him as they walk back to his car.

"What?" he finally asks as he opens the trunk, plops his bag inside. Waits for her to do the same, but she doesn't move, keeps her bag in her hand. " _What_?"

"I think that's my question," she answers after a pause. Hones in on the slight flush that has started to reassert itself on his cheeks. "What's your game, Byers?"

"I'm not playing a game. Put your bag in the trunk."

"You're doing _something_ ," she insists.

He huffs, frustrated, and she knows he's about to roll his eyes at her when he suddenly freezes. Her focus narrows to a pinpoint. She can see each step of his thought process: first his eyes go hazy, like he's remembering something, then his whole posture softens. Finally, he reaches out and takes her chin gently between thumb and forefinger, tilting her head up and leaning in to brush a tender kiss across her lips.

"No game, Nance. Come on, let's go home." He gestures to the trunk again, a silly grin on his face. She sighs and puts her bag in.

But something about the moment feels familiar. Painfully familiar. As she climbs in the passenger side she retraces it, teasing each other at the trunk of his car after leaving the hunting shop. They've done that before, kind of, a year ago but with feelings just burgeoning and mountains of fear and nervousness weighting them down. And then of course there was the interruption – the graffiti on the marquee and Steve's jealousy and the fight—

"Wait a minute," she says aloud and his eyes snap over to her for a second before he finishes pulling out of his parking spot and back into traffic. "Hold on. Wait. _Wait_."

"Do you want me to stop the car?" he asks. She shakes her head, even as she reaches out and punches his shoulder, hard. "Ow!"

"Wait a _goddamn minute_ ," she repeats and he flinches like he's expecting another punch but she just jabs her finger into his shoulder instead. "I got it. I figured it out."

"Figured what out?"

On another day she may have missed it, the nervousness in his voice, but now that everything has clicked into focus and it sounds like he's shouting _Oh no, I've been caught_ , right in her face.

"It's been weeks. You've been doing this for _weeks_. The woods, and the darkroom, the alley by the movie theater and the gym, that day you lied about having to pick Will up from AV Club—"

"I didn't lie, it was just a misunderstanding—"

"And the _sofa_ oh my god, was the sofa part of it too? It was! It was, your couch, that afternoon you kissed me on your couch—"

"You're gonna have to be a little more specific there, Nance, I've kissed you on my couch lots of times." He's trying to be deadpan but she can hear those nerves, amplified with each word.

"You know _exactly_ when I'm talking about," she waves him off.

"I _don't_ —"

"Yes you do, ohhh, I know you do!" She's giddy now with understanding, adrenaline pumping through her veins from having figured it out. She's not sitting in the seat anymore, she's perched on her knees, turned entirely toward him, and he's got his eyes trained on the road like it's going to save him from… something.

"I _know_ you know because you're keeping track, you _must_ be keeping track. I mean even just now at the trunk – these are all places from last year." The final piece clicks into place and she sits down on her heels, stares at him wide-eyed. "Are you… are you kissing me everywhere we were last year?"

"Not _everywhere_ ," he sounds annoyed. "Just all the places I wanted to kiss you, back then."

The admission knocks the wind out of her. She slides off her knees and onto her butt in the seat with a thump, watches his cheeks and the tips of his ears turn red. He chances a glance out of the corner of his eye but it lasts only a second.

"That's—" she tries, falters, starts again. "You—That's so—"

"Corny?"

" _Romantic_ ," she breathes out. "Jonathan…"

"It's embarrassing," he mutters, turning onto her street. "You weren't supposed to notice."

"I mean I didn't, not for a while at least?" she offers. He lets out a humorless laugh. "Oh come on," she shakes her head at him as he parks by her curb, shuts off the car. "Jonathan, look at me. Come on, please?"

He doesn't and she can't read his expression so she throws her arms around him instead. He hugs her back, looser than she'd like.

"Don't pout," she murmurs into the crook of his neck, giving him a squeeze. "You're so sweet." 

"Ugh," he pushes her away, opens his door. She has no choice but to follow him.

"When did you decide to do this?" she asks as she grabs her bags from the trunk, follows him up the walk to her house. "Did you decide? Or was it just, like, you'd remember and then kiss me?"

"Stop it, Nance."

"No I wanna know! Have you been thinking about it since last year?"

"I'm not answering any of these questions," he says as she reaches past him to open the door. Her mother calls out to them and she answers, and when her mother calls back that she'll fetch Will from the basement it almost drowns out his next grumbled admission. "I didn't even get to finish."

That pulls her up short in the foyer and she lets her bags drop by the coat rack.

“Finish? Finish wh… I’m sorry, did you make a list?” She’s grinning so hard it hurts, even as he groans and blushes even darker. Her eyes narrow and voice deepens as she takes a step closer to him. “Did you check it twice?”

“If your next sentence ends with ‘naughty or nice’ I’m going to have to break up with you,” he warns, but doesn’t back away or duck his head. He holds her gaze, steady. “And, I mean, I didn’t write anything down but… I… may have had some more places in mind.”

“You thought about it.” She pokes his chest lightly. “You thought about it a lot.”

“I thought about you a lot,” he shrugs and a wave of warmth floods her whole body.

“Well, what about me?”

“Hmm?” The way his brow furrows she can tell he doesn’t follow.

“Do I get to check any kisses off _my_ list?”

He tilts his head, intrigued. “I didn’t know you had a list.”

“Of course I have a list,” she scoffs, and steps away from him. She's not about to tell him he's already covered roughly half of it, but she's pretty sure she has some moments he doesn't. Considers where they are standing, between the front door and the stairs and the garlands lining the doorways. She takes him by the shoulders and moves him a step backwards, then two, and a little to the right. She steps back again, looks him over. Jonathan stays obediently still, hands at is sides, an amused grin finally breaking over his lips.

After a moment she nods, steps forward again, places a hand on his chest. She’s just rising onto her toes when his hand comes up to cover hers, stops her.

“You did kiss me here,” he reminds her. She braces herself with her other hand on his shoulder, faces even now that she’s on tip toe. 

“Not how I wanted to,” she says and presses her lips to his.

There is no hesitation before his arms wrap around her, one on her waist the other around her shoulders, drawing her tight against him. No hesitation as he parts her lips and deepens the kiss, dipping his tongue into her mouth. She lets her arms wind around his neck, fingers tangling in the ends of his hair, as he takes control deftly from her and proceeds to kiss her silly.

She loses track of time and place, just presses herself more fully against him and moans softly to encourage him when his hands start to wander, until the most unwelcome voice intrudes.

“Nancy!”

Her mother sounds scandalized and exasperated all at once, and it’s like ice water poured down the back of her sweater. They break apart, breathing hard, and even as her face goes hot with embarrassment the look Jonathan gives her - not at all abashed and more than a little proud - sends a tingle down her spine.

“Sorry mom!” She carefully avoids looking her in the eye, but that means she ends up looking at Will instead, standing next to her mother and looking as unamused as a teenage boy can. She gives a tiny half-shrug and he rolls his eyes at her. “Jonathan and I were just saying goodbye.”

Whatever Will mutters as he passes her to stand beside his brother is lost on her, but Jonathan reaches out and shoves his shoulder lightly anyway.

But suddenly they’re in the same places as the year before, nearly down to the tile, only this time Steve isn’t in the next room and she’s catching her breath from Jonathan’s kiss instead of imagining what it would feel like while letting someone else put their arm around her shoulders.

Jonathan smiles at her - soft and warm and crooked, the smile she loves most - and pulls on the hem of his jacket to straighten it. His voice is soft and rough at the same time when he speaks, familiar and just as she remembers.

“Merry Christmas.”

**Author's Note:**

> "Besame Mucho" translates to either "kiss me much" or "kiss me a lot," depending on who you ask.


End file.
